


First Love

by Queenie18



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: 2nd Person, Alec Lightwood Dies, Angst, Background Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Dead Alec Lightwood, Hurt Magnus Bane, Implied/Referenced Character Death, I’m so sorry, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Mourning, POV Magnus Bane, Past Character Death, Poetry, Reminiscing, Sad Ending, Sad Magnus Bane, no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22941238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenie18/pseuds/Queenie18
Summary: “Life doesn’t hurt so much anymore.It did, once. You thought the pain of that internal shattering would last forever. Though, now you’re unsure what is worse. That consuming despair or that you can’t remember what it tasted like. What it felt like.”—Or an AU world where Alec dies and Magnus is remembering his brief life with him.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Kudos: 40





	First Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poem: First Love

_—_

_Waking, with a dream of first love forming real words,_

_as close to my lips as lipstick, I speak your name,_

_after a silence of years, into the pillow, and the power_

_of your name brings me here to the window, naked,_

_to say it again to a garden shaking with light._

—

There is something so innocent about that first love.

You can can be doing so utterly mundane, eating your breakfast, alone, the soft music of the radio playing in the background. Or maybe you’re staring into your closet, the colours and fabrics like a reminder of everything you are. And everything you lost. And memories are wicked like that. They bombarded you in your sleep. Gentle caresses, whispered declarations. It is cruel but naive to think about it.

You find yourself unable to stop remembering.

Perhaps it is too nostalgic to stare out of that window. But there are times you find you cannot stop yourself. Privacy, it is entirely honest and stripped down, the light dusting the room of your apartment in a dazed glow. There was once a garden in an old window, cracked, stained.

That garden held smiles. Ones that were too honest, too private all at once. They were beautiful, like they were carved from some sonnet just for you, in the eve under that tree. That smile showed genuine love. He never smiled too much. But he always did for you.

And then there were those laughs. Unrestrained, inelegant and, yet, perfect. You wish to hear that laugh again and again. Create a record so that it can play on repeat and you can dance to it like a stupid love song.

It was silly. It was youth. It was almost bittersweet. Like you always knew that storybook endings never happened. That _‘happily ever after’_ in pretty cursive writing was just words on a page. But you hoped, once. You hoped it would happen just for you.

The window only shows buildings now. There is no dirt in the corner. There is no cold draft rattling the edges of it as storms came and passed, and you two watched, embraced in the dark. Instead, it’s pristine and expensive. You hated it once. Now, it is normal. It is expected.

Life doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

It did, once. You thought the pain of that internal shattering would last forever. Though, now you’re unsure what is worse. That consuming despair or that you can’t remember what it tasted like. What it felt like.

—

_This was a child's love, and yet I clench my eyes_

_till the pictures return, unfocused at first, then_

_almost clear, an old film played at a slow speed._

_All day I will glimpse it, in windows of changing sky,_

_in mirrors, my lover's eyes, wherever you are._

—

His eyes were blue. You can remember that.

But you’re not sure whether they were ocean blue or the light blue of the sky. Maybe they were deep, deep blue, like endless depths you could get lost in. They are forgotten in memories buried, dead. They had glimmered, like little, tiny stars were trapped within them. Every time he laughed, he smiled or gazed at you, those stars were there like a magical reminder.

You had this. But now you’ve lost it.

As you wonder the streets of your city, people rushing, constantly moving - you remember giggles under the rain. There was cafe in the town where you met. The coffee was too expensive, too brittle and sharp. But you loved it because he did.

You love him. Loved. Once.

The skyscrapers are too tall. The people are too loud. And every touch, every sensation, every new experience feels like a betrayal to that boy with blue eyes. The guilt has faded. Recognising it only brings momentarily recognition, then it is gone. Sometime, you’re not sure when, you have moved on. It’s both terrifying and comforting.

You have had thought that you’d never smile again.

His honesty was entirely too much and also not enough. Those words he spoke to you were never flowery or romantic but in your heart, they were like great declarations of love shouted from rooftops. You had been there when he cried, grasping to your shoulder. And he had been there when the world felt like it was collapsing, like you were trapped in a cage with no escape. He had been there for it all.

Years have passed. His family have matured. You can imagine he is proud of them, wherever he is. And after he left, they had grown up and become something for themselves that he had always wished for. Sometimes you wondered whether he is a guardian angel, protecting in the shadows, hidden like he had been when he was alive.

You always saw him, though. Even as everyone shone like platinum, gold and diamonds - he was there in demure silver and you fell.

Falling was something no one could ever explain. It doesn’t happen overnight, it doesn’t happen instantly. It is like a gentle drift until you hit the end; love. And what a poisonous concept it was, love. Love that was promised. Love that should have been.

Love that had failed.

The shop you browse is bright, colourful. It is everything he had not been and that is okay, somehow. Black only reminds you of mourning. You have refused to mourn for so long, you couldn’t even do it anymore.

That should have been wrong. But it wasn’t.

And that will be fine. Because you are fine.

—

_And later a star, long dead, here, seems precisely_

_the size of a tear. Tonight, a love-letter out of a dream_

_stammers itself in my heart. Such faithfulness._

_You smile in my head on the last evening. Unseen_

_flowers suddenly pierce and sweeten the air._

—

The world seems silent when you visit him.

You used to do it often, daily, with flowers of light, pastel colours in your hand. It is bleak, where he rests. If you had decided, you would have let him sleep in a field of gold and green, forever bright and immortal.

Immortal like you thought your love would be.

The marble is stained. His name is carved in with professional, cold distance. There never seemed to be any care to it. And over time, it had disintegrated into this misery, this unloved corner of the world.

You’re not sure when the last person had sat here just to be with him. Your blue eyed boy.

You don’t have flowers with you. They always rotted, alone in a vase and it felt shallow. What you were, that bright potential could never amount to superficial petals. Nothing physical on this Earth could match up to it. It’s a hallowing realisation.

Maybe that’s why it sucks so bad. Because he deserved so much. And he never got anything.

There are no tears left. In their stead, there is only that empty void in your chest. There is no pain. No remorse. No nothing.

The world has passed on. People had grown. You have grown.

But still, some small slither of you remains in this graveyard like an endless promise.

That angel’s smile had faded in the depths of your mind, blurred like the window. And maybe someday you wouldn’t remember his name. It still has the ability to cause a shiver up your spine, a soft gaze of adoration in your eyes.

_Alexander._

Brave. Unique. Perfect.

And here he lays, in front of you. A reminder of what love could be, if you reached for it.

It might appear again. That giddiness. That lightness.

But you would forever be grateful for those blue eyes teaching you how it felt.

Love.

It was promised.

And, once, it had delivered.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I SWEAR I’m a supporter for Immortal Maelc, like seriously!
> 
> It’s just..... we were studying this poem in class and I immediately thought of Malec and it never left my mind until I wrote it down. I don’t know why I get urges to write angst, ugh.
> 
> I know the language is weird, and not like me, but I kinda wanted to make it sound like a poem. Idk.
> 
> I cried writing this. Now I need Nutella and Netflix so I can watch Shadowhunters and be happy :(
> 
> Comments and Kudos’ oui oui (if yiu can see clearly through your tears to do so) :((


End file.
